I almost didn't have time to shift the gear into park before Serenity and Dean were opening the back doors of the car wide to get out. Sam, in the seat behind me, was the only person who waited for me to get the keys out of the ignition before getting out into the car park.

Sam pushed his hands in his pockets, patting down his jacket, and then pulled out the folded paper with the Tarot cut-out. He'd brought it with us just in case we needed to confirm the image or the cross, although I was pretty sure we weren't likely to forget what it looked like. I pulled out the side of my jacket and shoved the Impala's keys in an inside pocket underneath the bust line.

Sam looked at the Tarot card before he started to fold it up again for storage. "If Roy's using a spell, there might be a spell book." He reasoned. Underneath his voice, I could hear the protestor from yesterday shouting for the people in the tent about Roy's fraudulence.

"He and Sue Ann live alone," I remembered. There had been no other humans to flip out, or animals that could prove to be an issue. "Their house will be unguarded. If I'm caught," I grimaced, but held a hand up to my chest to indicate myself. "I can weasel my way out and make up some probable cause."

Serenity gave Sam's side a light shove. There was almost no real force behind it, as was proved by the way Sam barely moved in reaction. "Take Sammy with you," she suggested, and I got the feeling it was more of a "you're not going alone, just in case" than a normal "take Sammy with you". "He has a better idea of what to look for than you do. I'll stay here, and come up with a diversion if necessary."

The grin that she sported was almost enough to convince me that, police be damned, Serenity and I should swap roles in this plan.

Before I had very long to consider it, Dean okay-ed the plan of attack. "Sounds like a plan. Okay, go… see if you can find it." He raised his right arm and with his left hand he pulled back the sleeve of his dad's jacket to see his wristwatch. "Hurry up, too," he added. "The service is about to start. We'll try to stall Roy."

When Dean turned around, he got about five steps before the protestor veered to come to him, pushing out a leaflet in Dean's direction for him to take. "Roy LeGrange is a fraud," he accused vehemently. "He's no healer!"

Dean took the paper – well, not exactly happily, but he was definitely supporting the protestor's cause. He clapped his free hand on the other man's shoulder soundly, and, surprised, the protestor looked to the side at the hunter. "Amen, brother," Dean agreed, letting his hand slide off as he turned to pass the protestor.

Serenity didn't stop there. She came up on the man's other side, putting an arm around both of his shoulders. "Don't let those cops shut you out," she encouraged, her eyes bright and determined. "We have the freedom to know what we're really being charged for!..." As she went on, she raised her other arm to the sky like she was getting the protestor to envision something in particular.

Sam cocked his head at Serenity, slowly leading the man towards the tent after Dean with her hand dangling down to his chest from his opposite shoulder, arm against his neck in camaraderie. "What's she doing?" He asked.

I took a deep breath and shook my head. "Fanning the flame," I replied, reaching up and grabbing onto the sleeve of Sam's flannel shirt. "Sometimes I think she enjoys it a little too much. Come on."

Sam and I found a window to break in through on the right side of the house, not facing the car park on the field of the property. It was on the first floor, but there was a sloping incline by the window that made it a little harder to get into. It became an even more difficult crime than I'd first thought when we found out that even Sam wasn't tall enough to undo the lock and push up the window. I didn't bother trying myself – if Sam couldn't reach it, then I wouldn't be able to, either, unless the laws of physics somehow managed to bend for me.

And so that's why we went around to the front porch, using the steps as a ladder of sorts to help me get onto his shoulders. Sam grunted, his fingers curling into my thighs, and I giggled despite the precarious sense of balance that I got from being around nine feet in the air. Sam and his brother had always come across as physically fit, but I hadn't realized how strong Sam was until we learned that he could actually pick me up and carry me – not too much of a feat for a fit male – on his shoulders (which was much more impressive). While we moved slowly like a circus duo around the side of the house back to the window, I reached down and set my hand over one of his on my legs, while the other pet his hair half because it's soft and half because I don't think he liked it.

"I can reach!" I cheered, raising both arms up and straightening my back, slowly so as to not throw Sam's balance too quickly. The lock was on the inside, but that we'd already known. I exercised amazing balance while Sam let go of my left leg to pass up a pocketknife, and as his hand returned to my thigh, I slipped the knife underneath the window and jimmied the lock with one hand, using the other to push against and upwards on the glass.

Lo and behold, it opened.

"Did it work?" Sam asked tersely while I flipped the blade on his knife shut, then set it to the side of the windowsill.

"It did!" I cheered some more, rejoicing in the victory. It was a good thing I remembered that waving my arms wouldn't be helpful, because for a second there I was tempted.

Sam turned against the house and I got a grip on the window. I started to pull myself in, taking most of my weight onto the window rather than the Winchester, and moved my legs off of his shoulders, reaching down past the windowsill on the inside of the house for purchase. A minute later, Sam lifted my legs up for me, helping me with both my own weight and the acrobatic climb through the window – which was narrow.

I dug my nails into the shaggy carpet inside what looked like it was a study and leaned in, sliding through and knocking my knees on the window pane. I caught myself on my shoulder and forearms and rolled away from the window before pulling myself up. "I'm in!" I called to Sam, before poking my head out the window. "Go around to the front. I'll unlock the door."

"Good, because I don't think that window is big enough." Sam and I weren't actually too far apart now, but it was still unrealistic to think he could jump high enough to pull himself through the same way.

I scoffed. "You think it was easy for me?"

"You're smaller," he reminded me. Which was fair, but still. That was not easy.

"Except I have hips!" I objected. "And breasts!" I thought I made a valid point, but Sam was giving me one of his bitch faces that suggested he didn't think we had time to argue who would have the harder time getting through a narrow window. "Just go around to the porch."

After letting Sam in, the two of us agreed to return to the study that we'd initially broken into. It seemed as likely a place as any to search for any dark magic guides. Sam went behind the desk to pull out the drawers while I went through the book shelf on the left of the room.

It looked like barely any of the books had been read in years. Not only were the shelves themselves covered in dust, but when I dragged a finger across the spines of the books, I found my skin coated in dust. There was only one tome that had much shine left along the sleek hardback cover, and it was almost four inches thick.

I reached up to the top of the volume and pulled it out, wriggling it free from between two other novellas, and looked at the cover with a disappointed sigh. Encyclopedia of British History. Sticking my tongue out (who would spend more time reading that than any other of these books?), I hefted it back up to its shelf to replace it when I saw something behind where it had been – a small black book with no illustrations or writing on the cover.

I leaned to the side and slid the encyclopedia volume onto the edge of the study's desk while Sam ducked down onto his knees to go through the bottom drawer on the right. When I reached to pull out the little journal, I was surprised by how light it was in contrast to the encyclopedia. Maybe eight inches tall and half an inch thick, it could have fit in a small purse or large pocket. I sat the spine up against my palm and let go, letting the journal fall open in my hand.

The image on the page it opened to was shockingly familiar. It looked like an almost exact copy of the Tarot card Sam had printed out from online, but with the hues a little bit different. The cross was the same, sitting up in the top right hand corner with elaborate calligraphy underneath the picture. On the other side of the page was a short clip from a local newspaper with a picture of the protestor from the parking lot, dressed professionally and smiling at the camera.

I turned the page over. The small-print writing was covered by clippings from other newspaper articles. One was actually of Marshall Hall, the victim from yesterday, and underlined in black ink pen were lines that said he was a teacher in a middle school and was openly homosexual. On the opposite page, with edges unevenly cut, was an article about another woman whose name I recognized from the list of decedents Sam compiled. That one had underlined lines that emphasized her support for abortion clinics.

"Did you find something?" Sam asked hopefully, his voice almost making me jump. I'd gotten so wrapped up in the contents of the journal that I hadn't realized at first when he had stopped making noise in his own search.

"Definitely," I answered, shocked just by the little bits of print in the book I could pick out underneath the taped newspapers. Some lines seemed to be Latin. Others were written in an old-fashioned syntax with dark meanings and unsettling implications. I turned the page back. "Here's the Tarot cross and the reaper picture. And these are newspaper cut-outs." I turned the page to the second one again, and Sam moved forward to look over my shoulder. I changed how I held the journal so that he could see. "Marshall Hall, he was out of the closet. That must have been significant. And the woman who died before that advocated for abortion rights." Again, I turned the page to the Tarot card and the clip of the protestor, who was named David Wright by the headline. "This one, though, he's not a victim."

"Not yet," Sam corrected, looking up from the journal and back to the desk thoughtfully. "So… abortion supporter, openly gay…" he came to a conclusion quickly and looked back up to me. "I bet these victims were all chosen for something Roy thought was immoral. The protestor's voicing against the services and Roy's reputation. He must be the next target for the reaper."

"Son of a bitch," I groaned, slamming the book shut and throwing it back onto the shelf. Sam lifted the encyclopedia and reached back to grab the journal on a second thought, but otherwise putting things back the way they had been before we rifled through. In the meantime, I moved to get my phone and hit up my speed dial. The tone stopped halfway through the second ring. "Dean?"

"What have you got?" Strictly business, speaking rapidly to save time.

"Roy's making the reaper attack people he thinks are immoral." Remembering the window, I made Sam's task go faster by holding the phone between my ear and my shoulder, freeing up my hands to slide it down. I replaced the lock. Even though it wasn't working, they wouldn't realize that until they opened it, and there was no clear proof of a break in. "We think his next victim is the protestor."

"What? The guy in the parking lot?" After seeing him pulled away by police the day before and having returned to strongly reassert his opinions, it would have been hard to forget Wright, as his name apparently was.

"Yeah," I confirmed. The picture had been black and white, like most newspaper photos, but it was clearly recognizable. Sam kicked one of the desk drawers firmly shut. "Look, we'll go out and find him, but we can't really fight off a reaper, so don't let Roy heal anyone. Okay?"

There was a beat in which I didn't get a response. Then, suddenly, there was a loud uproar, presumably from an audience's enthusiastic applause. "I've… got to go." Dean hung up.

Sam and I decided to take opposite sides of the parking lot in order to find the protestor before the reaper managed to get to him. I bolted and weaved through rows and rows of unevenly parked cars in search of the man, looking left and right constantly and sometimes stumbling from a dip in the ground I didn't see.

"Help!" The scream tore at the air, cutting through the stillness of the outside of the tent. I was amazed no one inside had heard. I spun around while still moving through cars, trying to pinpoint the source and nearly falling over the hood of a low Chevy (not the Impala). "Help! Help me, please!"

I found the protestor while he was running, shuffling sideways and constantly looking over his shoulder. His arms were out in front of him to feel for obstacles while he tried to run away from something. I assumed it was the reaper, but since it wasn't coming for me, it was invisible to my eyes. The man was flushed, jacket already ripped along one sleeve, and bangs were falling down his forehead as he fled in a panic.

I chased after him and the reaper, running along a parallel row and then jumping up to cross over in front of him. I leapt up onto the trunk of a red Volvo in an aisle, crouched down for balance and jumped off the side, landing with force onto the ground by the protestor and looked around.

"Where is he?!"

I held my arms out on either side, blocking the protestor with my body as a shield, looking up the aisle. There were just cars, red, black, and silver around. Chevys, Hondas, Toyotas, Dodges, a Jeep. Nothing else seemed to be out of place. It was weird to be terrified of something invisible – I knew it was there, and my heart was pumping out the adrenaline, but my eyes couldn't find anything to be afraid of.

"He's there!" Wright yelled manically.

"I can't see him," I told him impatiently, narrowing my eyes and looking around as if maybe the reaper, though invisible in body, would leave footprints on the Earth, soft from last night's rain. "You have to point to where he is!"

The man grasped onto my left shoulder over the collarbone with a fierce grip that was mostly from fear. He threw his arm out over mine while he wrenched me back by the side. "Right there!" He was pointing ahead and to the left. "But… he's… stopped!"

"Why?" Although my legs were itching to run, I kept my heels planted into the grass, my arms up in front of Wright protectively. I looked where I thought the reaper would be, again agitated that I had no way of knowing its location. "Has he stopped coming for you altogether, or is he just not moving? Can you still see him?"

Why would the reaper have stopped? Unless it's letting him go – but why would it stick around if so? The only difference is that I'm here. Okay, I know I have a Guardian who can fight off powerful spirits, but thinking that it could be warding off a reaper is just ridiculous. There had to be some other reason that a bringer of Death itself wasn't approaching. Had the ritual been interrupted, its' master's concentration broken?

"I still see him," Wright responded, borderline hysterically, his fingernails digging through my jacket and shirt and into my shoulder, forming a bruise. I was too preoccupied by the invisible menace to knock him off – and if I was protecting him in any way, then I wasn't sure I'd want to. "How come you don't? He's right there!"

"Four feet away, at least?" I asked, taking a guess that as long as the reaper wasn't within an arm's length then I might be okay. Roy wasn't siccing it after me, anyway, but I wasn't too eager to find out how differentiated the reaper was between its victims and those who stood in the way.

Dear Lord, it was like the man had claws in place of fingertips. "Yeah, maybe." Shaky voice; unwavering grip.

I drew myself up and stepped more in front of the man, looking in the direction that I believed the reaper to be in. Wright's hand kept a grip on my left shoulder, and he leaned to look over my shoulder despite his obvious terror. I made my stance firm so the reaper would know I wasn't going to give up. "Let me know if he moves at all," I ordered Wright, narrowing my eyes at the seemingly empty space in front of me and raising my voice. "I don't know why you've stopped, and I don't know if you actually want to attack all these people, but you can't take him."

Absolute silence and stillness, and no sign of any surreal monster coming to steal my soul and drag me to the light, be it hellfire or an angel choir.

Finally, Wright let out a choked, half-strangled gasp and his fingers slackened. "He's gone…" he said in relief, right as my phone started to ring.

It barely got three notes into the ringtone before I slid my thumb across the touchscreen and accepted the call, holding it to my ear. Dean started talking the moment he wasn't hearing a dial tone. "I did it, I stopped Roy."

I kept the phone pressed to my ear, but shrugged my shoulder to tell the guy to let me go. I stepped forward tentatively, looking right and left for any attack, but went through the space that the reaper had supposedly been occupying without even a rush of coolness or a whiff of ozone.

I turned back to the protestor. "I… I think we're safe now," I said, hoping that I sounded more certain than I felt. Wright nodded, his chest heaving and sweat beading on his brow, and started to turn to his side when he stopped, his neck snapping up and eyes widening in terror at a form I still couldn't see.

He panted, "No!" and his knees gave out. His head was tipped to the side like he was being forced down with a hand over his hair.

"Dean, it didn't work!" I yelled into my phone, advancing on impulse alone as the man's skin took on a more ashen hue and his eyes began to glaze over eerily. "The reaper is still – uh – reaping!" I reached up with my free hand and tangled my fingers into my hair.

"But Roy's not healing anyone!" Dean shouted back.

I couldn't argue with what was happening right in front of me. Wright slumped, face tilted up, enough space between him and the Volvo next to him for a person. "Dean, I'm telling you, the reaper is still coming!" I replied hotly through the phone line, shifting my weight and bouncing from heel to heel to move in either direction rapidly. "Roy must not be controlling it!" Which wasn't what we'd planned on, but it did explain how a blind man read a spell book – he didn't.

"Then who is…? Sue Ann!"

From that point, the sound on Dean's end came across as muffled, but after a second the color of Wright's face stopped becoming less and less. Then, through the phone, I heard Sue Ann's voice, startled, crying out. "Help! Help me!"

Wright fell forward from his knees onto all fours, throwing his head down, hair ruffled as pinkness rose to his cheeks, his skin coloring while he blinked, coughing and spluttering. The reaper must have let him go when Dean distracted its controller – Sue Ann, in this case. I bounded the short distance between myself and the protestor, dropping down onto my knees and throwing an arm across his back. "I've got you. You're okay now."

"Thank God," he breathed, eyes half-lidded and a shudder coursing down his back. His eyes were watering.

I looked towards the tent between the cars in the lot. Not exactly, I thought, the irony not going unnoticed by me.

Serenity came and found me not long after the people came running out of the church and to their cars only seconds after the reaper had left Wright alone. I stayed in the lot with the protestor, unsure whether or not I should leave him by himself, but Serenity told me Dean had gotten himself into trouble stopping Sue Ann and volunteered to stick by the man until he was on his feet again. She also promised to call Sam while I went and made sure Dean wasn't getting himself arrested.

I found him being held outside the tent by two police officers acting as security guards for the LeGranges' service. One of them was holding Dean roughly by both shoulders, and the Winchester knew better than to try to ditch. Sue Ann was stood in front of him, surveying him in what felt like exaggerated disappointment meant to make her seem like a confused victim.

"I just don't understand," I heard her say from where I hovered far enough away to stay out of her focus. "After everything we've done for you… after Roy healed you. I'm just very, very disappointed, Dean." It felt like she was lecturing him.

Dean stared back at her stonily. He wouldn't let her get to him, but he didn't trust himself to say something that wouldn't get him in any more trouble. I knew he hated people who thought they had the right to dictate other peoples' rights, and he'd expressed earlier that people with this kind of God complex strike him as monsters. Having Sue Ann chasten him must grate on his nerves like few other things do.

When she received no apology, or any other sort of verbal communication, Sue Ann sighed. She pulled her long coat closer around her body like a defense. "You can let him go," she told the cops, looking from one to the other respectfully. "I'm not gonna press charges." I snorted. As if she could, knowing I'm on Dean's side. She dropped her eyes down to the hunter. "The Lord will deal with him as he sees fit."

While she kept on to leave, having appropriately delivered her message of threat, I sighed, cursing in my head that this had happened. Someone who had control over a reaper with a grudge against Dean was going to not only be on my personal hate list, but also a real problem in my life unless we could figure out how to break her spell before anyone else was harmed.

Apparently, having Sue Ann's okay wasn't good enough for the cops. One of them looked to Dean and, in a low voice, warned him, "We catch you 'round here again, son, we'll put the fear of God in you, understand?"

Now, that was absolutely nothing less than a threat. Rolling my shoulders, I moved in to interfere, getting my credentials from my pocket to take over and get Dean away from the policemen, who seemed like they would take far too much joy out of putting said fear into him with force.

Dean lifted his shoulders, smiling sarcastically at the policeman threatening him. "Yes, sir," he said in a mockery of respect, with a sardonic tone. "Fear of God. Got it."

Putting on a mask of irritation, I held open my credentials in the FBI for the officers to see and stalked over to Dean, pushing my way in front of the cop that had first brought up the 'fear of God' line. "I'll take him from here, sirs."

The second officer released Dean's shoulder and I brought my hand up to fist in the collar of his jacket, knuckles brushing against the back of his neck while I pushed him forward, appearing deceptively rough when in reality I wasn't actually trying to hurt him. The police let us leave while I led Dean away from the two and in the general direction of the Impala instead.

Dean grinned, flashing me his charm smile and letting me practically drag him by his jacket. "I'm starting to think you like manhandling me a bit too much there, Holls."

"How could I resist?" I returned, not all too amused. I let myself get drawn into the banter anyway, because I could feel the tension of facing off with the reaper beginning to slowly drain from my shoulders, becoming aware of the bruise of Wright's grip. "Some handcuffs and rope and I could have you exactly where I want you… tied up helplessly in the hotel room… where you can't get yourself in any trouble with police," I added in a deadpan.

We turned the corner to the front of the tent by the car lot, and almost ran right into a certain woman we'd talked to only a couple of times.

"Layla?" Dean asked, all signs of his joking demeanor gone in an instant, replaced with guilt and upset, but no frustration or anger towards her. He stopped, his feet freezing in place like a deer caught in a car's headlights.

"Why would you do that, Dean?" Layla looked as if she thought there was a knife embedded in her back, and her face was a mix of disappointment and betrayal. "And it could have been my only chance."

While at first I didn't know what she was on about, I quickly pieced it together – Dean had stopped Roy from 'healing' Layla in the service, so that the reaper wouldn't continue to kill the protestor. Immediately I winced, but hoped neither had noticed. I didn't like that she seemed to be getting an inordinate amount of Dean's sympathies, but I have no issue with her as a person. I definitely don't want her dead. Being a little bit jealous is a really far cry from wishing for someone's life to end.

"He's not a healer," Dean informed her, shaking his head to back it up. His eyes were wide, like he was pleading with her to understand that he didn't have ill intentions, but she wasn't getting the message.

Layla's frown only deepened. "He healed you," she countered emphatically.

I shook my head and relaxed my fist from Dean's clothes, remembering that I still had his jacket in a vice. Instead, I rubbed the back of his neck carefully with my palm. "I'm sorry, Layla." And I was – the sincerity in my voice and face wasn't falsified. She seemed like a nice person, and Roy had been giving her hope, but we just couldn't let this continue. It was immoral, wrong, horrific, unnatural – there was an entire slew of other negative adjectives I could use, but I felt that those four summed it up fairly well. "But it's complicated."

"I know it doesn't seem fair, and I wish I could explain." Dean had to look down to see Layla at her shorter height, the breeze ruffling her hair and sending strands across her cheeks and forehead. "But Roy is not the answer. I'm sorry."

I guess she didn't want to hear it. Layla dropped her head so she wasn't looking at him. "Goodbye, Dean," she said through a sigh, moving around to his other side to walk past the hunter. Dean tipped his head back to look up at the clouds. I gingerly massaged circles into the back of his neck with my thumb. Layla paused as she was leaving and stopped to look over her shoulder. "I wish you luck," she called. "I really do."

"Same – Same to you," Dean responded, just loud enough for her to hear. His voice faltered as he tried to talk, and he dropped his head down, swinging back around with his back to the retreating woman. "You deserve it a lot more than me."

Hearing him mutter under his breath, I removed my hand from his neck and whacked him upside the head with no real force behind it. "Don't do that to yourself," I rebuked softly, immediately dropping my hand back to his neck. "We can't save everyone." I moved closer to him and nudged my shoulder against his. "You helped me learn that."

His nod was too quick. "I know." He said quietly, his eyes riveted on the ground. Despite having been assaulted, however friendlily, he was unusually unreceptive to me. I won't lie to myself; it hurt that he was more crushed by Layla than comforted by me.

I paused and moved away, dropping my hand from his neck and sliding my palm over his back before moving my arms in front of me, keeping them to myself. The attempts at comfort clearly weren't getting through. "But… it is harder when a victim is someone you know," I allowed sympathetically, catching his eyes and nodding back behind us towards the Impala, Sam, and Serenity.

"Private session tonight, no interruptions." Roy was looking over Mrs. Rourke's shoulder as she and Layla were now talking to the reverend, Sue Ann holding onto his arm and looking up at him in adoration. He was the only person present in the house earlier and the common denominator between then and now, and I realized that it wasn't an act. Sue Ann really was head-over-heels for her husband, even after being married for who knew how long. Problem was, she was practicing dark magic without his knowledge and losing touch with her ethics in the process. "I give you my word, I'll heal your daughter."

"Thank you, reverend." Mrs. Rourke was almost sobbing with relief, and she clasped her hands in front of her mouth as if she was praying. "God bless you."

Dean's footsteps slowed as we both looked over and I matched his pace. At first I grit my teeth, because ugh, more problems and even more limited time. Then I realized he was watching Layla, who hadn't noticed us passing. I clapped his back lightly and pushed, steering him away from the quartet and to the car.

Sam was seated on the edge of his and Serenity's bed, about two feet up the mattress from my sister, who laid stretched out on top of the comforter. "So, Roy really believes." Sam sounded stunned a little bit sheepish, probably for having suspected the man at first without really thinking through how his blindness would hinder spellcasting.

"I don't think he has any idea what his wife's doing," Dean put in, looking through the blinds before releasing them from his fingers and letting the paper covers snap back into place in front of the window. He started to move to cross back towards the bed.

"Well, Holly found this." Reaching into the inside of his loose jacket, Sam retrieved the little black book Sue Ann had been hiding in the study. He held it out face-up towards his brother. "It was hidden in their library. It's ancient, written by a priest who went dark side. There's a binding spell in here for trapping a reaper."

"It's not a pretty spell," I said with a slight shiver that I think went unnoticed. Just remembering the little that I had gleaned from it earlier was enough to give me goosebumps on my arms.

"What does it involve?" Serenity asked, laying out horizontally along her bed with her feet hanging off one side, her elbows propping up her chin. Her legs were still. "Blood magic? Deals? Bargaining? Altars?" It used to bother me that Serenity had this stuff in her head, but now it was a bit of a reassurance. We had the bonus information source, and she knew what could be dangerous and important to stay away from.

Sam started nodding at the first one – blood magic, which made me really stop and wonder how much power blood really held in the supernatural realm. And on that note – magic? I was stretching my limited imagination a bit too wide already, what with the faith healer and then the reaper. Magic has always been parlor tricks, not real spells and incantations.

"Yeah. You've got to build a black altar with seriously dark stuff – bones, human blood. To cross a line like that…" Sam shook his head, his eyes wide in amazement and his hair flopping over his forehead. "A preacher's wife," he added for the irony. "Black magic. Murder. Evil-"

"Desperate," Dean cut in, raising his eyes up from his forearms to his brother, who silenced himself in surprise at the interruption. "Her husband was dying, she didn't have anything to save him. She was using the binding spell to keep the reaper away from Roy."

It fit, clicking in place with the rest of the pieces we had, and Sam nodded, blinking. "Cheating death. Literally."

Dean exhaled and looked back up, crossing one arm over the other on top of his legs. "Yeah, but Roy's alive, so why is she still using the spell?"

Wanting to save her husband I could get behind. So what if it had taken some dark actions to get her there? I could empathize with a desperation to save a cherished spouse, but there was no way I could condone anything she'd done since. "I can buy that she started this thing with good intentions, but since then, the power has corrupted her psyche and convoluted its purpose. It gave her a serious God complex. Now she's trying to kill people just for slighting her and her husband." It made me sad to think that Sue Ann, who may have just been a desperate and devoted wife, now had to be stopped by whatever means possible because she'd let it get to her head.

Especially because people who have mental issues often don't realize there's anything wrong. To her, she'd being totally rational and ethical. Sometimes it makes me angry, but other times it just makes me feel sad on their behalf.

Dean snorted, shaking his head slowly while looking down to his knees, elbows on his thighs. "May God save us from half the people who think they're doing God's work."

Nothing against religion, but it has been twisted to fit some seriously whacked delusions before. I nodded wholeheartedly, having seen quite a bit of that before. "You have no idea."

"We gotta break that binding spell." Sam decided, shutting Sue Ann's book with a soft clap as papers snapped together. He looked across the room to Serenity expectantly.

"I'd say we throw the altar," she suggested. Mentally I pictured her standing calmly beside a table, then suddenly flipping out and sending it flying. I snickered softly. "But there should be something else, too – like a talisman, or a charm, that gives Sue Ann specifically the control over the reaper." Serenity sent me a suspicious glance at my laughs, and I quieted myself, giving her a meek, almost apologetic look and an innocent wave.

Dean took in a deep breath and let it out as a hand traveled up to rub the chain of his amulet between his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully. "You know, Sue Ann had a Coptic cross like that on the Tarot. When she dropped it, the reaper backed off."

"She had to start yelling for security to get you away," I remembered. "She must have hidden it, for reputation's sake."

"So, do you think we've got to find the cross, or destroy the altar?" As Sam asked, I again envisioned a table being flipped upside down and halfway across the room – this time by Sam. When the first time it was funny because Serenity houses more strength than one would initially think and flipping a table emphasizes the point, it made me giggle the second time because Sam, despite his potential to be intimidating and imposing, was one of the gentlest and kindest people that I knew (hunting monsters aside, because there are always exceptions).

The first time I laughed I'd been dismissed, but this time I got weird looks from all three of them. I shrugged again. I couldn't help my mind and its strange tendencies.

"Maybe both," Dean suggested. "Whatever we do, we'd better do it soon. Roy's healing Layla tonight." He rose up from the bed and, somewhat rigidly, passed across the room. Sam looked up and watched his brother's back, and I looked back down, shuffling my feet unhappily. Suddenly, the situation wasn't quite so silly.

We coasted up to a stop in the Impala in the much smaller congregation of cars outside of Roy's tent. It was already dark out, and most of the lights came from inside of the tent, lit with lamps and candles. The outside was illuminated by starlight. While it seemed inconvenient at first, at least we'd have the cover of darkness to sneak around in.

Unfortunately, the headlights had illuminated the old car belonging to the Rourkes. "That's Layla's car," Sam said, looking through the back window. I ground my teeth, not commenting. "She's already here."

Dean looked out the side of the passenger's window. "Yeah," he said, unusually softly and sadly.

My sister shifted and unclicked her seatbelt. It slid back across her chest and retracted into the device while she pushed herself forward to the edge of her seat and leaned over the booth of the front seat to Dean. "Dean, I don't know what's going on with you and Layla," she started to say with a concerned frown. I tossed my head to the side, glaring out the window. Him and Layla again! I'm not just making it up! "But you know we don't have a choice… right?"

"You know, if Roy would've picked Layla instead of me, she'd be here right now." Dean just sounded so solemn and depressed. I was torn between being snarky and reminding him that she actually was in the tent and leaning across the seat for a hug. "And if she's not healed tonight, she's gonna die in a couple of months."

Seconds passed. No one responded, because really, what could we say to that?

"What's happening to her? Is horrible." Sam finally ventured to say, breaking up the contemplative silence before Dean slipped too far into this mood of his. "But what are we going to do? Let somebody else die to save her?" Dean didn't at first respond, but shifted unhappily. He knew what the right answer was, he just didn't want to have to admit it. "You said it yourself, Dean. You can't play God."

We all got out of the car and moved to the tent, but instead of stepping inside, Serenity pulled back one of the flaps at the entrance to peek in inconspicuously. I could see the light growing with the gap, lighting up my sister for a second while she looked in. There was the murmuring of soft voices of a much smaller group of those faithful to Roy and his healing.

"Where's Sue Ann?" Dean asked, trying to see in just over Serenity's shoulder.

"The house," Serenity responded after a minute of not being able to pick the woman out of the small crowd.

I started to move out from behind Sue Ann and Roy's car, parked in front of their house, but stopped and threw myself back down on the opposite side of the porch. The two cops who had threatened Dean earlier in the day were standing guard at the property by the front steps. I reached out and put a hand on Serenity's shoulders, pushing her back down when she tried to look up and peer out over the hood of the car.

My voice was dropped down to a whisper as I conferenced with my friends. "We have a two-story house, an altar to throw, a psycho to find, and guards to distract." I summarized.

Serenity leaned to one side, half over Sam as she got up on her knees. Instead of making herself visible over the hood of the car, she looked through the windows of the front seat to see the house. "Hang on," she whispered back, straining her neck to see something. "There's another light to the left of the house. It looks like a cellar."

"So, two floors of the house and a cellar," Sam amended my initial observations.

Dean pushed himself forward on the springy grass. "You go find Sue Ann," he ordered, pushing himself up onto his feet and making himself visible to the cops if they looked over. "I'll catch up."

Sam looked up at his brother warily. "What are you going to-"

He was cut off by Dean jumping away from behind the car, into plain view. "Hey!" He shouted, immediately getting both cops' attentions. I rolled my eyes up and leaned my head back, smacking lightly on the metal of the side. "You gonna put that fear of God in me?"

I sighed. "Moron," I muttered.

"Actually, this works out pretty well," Serenity quietly remarked, while Dean took off running around the front of the car towards the tent and the rest of the automobiles in the parking lot. I could hear the thunking of footsteps as the police rushed to pursue him. "While they're chasing him, we can go right in through the door."

It did sound much easier than doing gymnastics to get in again.

"If you see an altar, flip it as soon as you can," Sam urged, not whispering now that we now longer had to be mindful of police. Dean was doing an excellent job distracting them all on his own. "If it's necessary for the spell, then it'll stop her from using the reaper."

Serenity gave Sam a thumbs-up with one hand. "Got it."

"I'll take the cellar," I decided quickly. It seemed likely to be where Sue Ann hid her crazy, extracurricular activities. Roy may be blind, but I think he'd notice if there was a table with burning candles or the smell of blood or incense, and Sue Ann, the doting wife when not the crazy reaper-master, probably wouldn't want to risk him accidentally running into it without knowing it was there. Altar in the cellar – Sue Ann not necessarily.

I let the cellar doors close behind me. It was better than leaving them propped open and attracting the attention of anyone else who passed by. On my way down the stairs, I half expected a gnarled hand to reach out and grab my ankle, like the rawhead had done to Sam what felt like far longer ago than it actually had been. I caught sight of something thin swinging lightly in the draft created by the shutting doors, and while there was a soft light from further downstairs, I didn't want to be completely unprepared, so I grabbed onto what turned out to be a cord and gave it a tug.

There was a click, and then a light bulb over the stairs turned on. The soft light emitting from the bottom of the stairs and further into the cellar was half drowned out by the electrical light from over my head, but I could see much better now.

I got off of the stairs quickly in case they weren't completely stable. The cellar was decrepit, unused except for the storage of boxes and old furniture behind the stairs at first. There was a table with a broken leg in front of another window to my left that had been boarded up long since, and speaking of boards, there were patches where the wood on the walls were rotting. Some had nails or screws that had rusted and given out, leaving the insulation visible.

I shivered. The feeling of the cellar on its own was giving me the creeps. If Sue Ann somehow got out of this, then she definitely needed to hire someone for reparations.

There were, at least, no busted waterlines.

Aside from the walls with the storage and furniture, the cellar seemed mostly clear. I saw a table directly across the room from the stairs pushed against the wall, with a dark red tablecloth draped across it, and before I looked up to see the artifacts on top, I stopped myself and looked over the floor. I watched my feet as I moved closer. I felt so out of place from my professional attire already that seeing my dress shoes didn't make it any better, just made the dirty floor seem even filthier in comparison to the shine on my shoes.

The artificial light that had been coming from the cellar before I found the lightbulb was from a collection of candles. Bracing myself to see black magic, I looked up to the table.

Oh my God…

It was worse than I'd expected.

Witches were always a fantasy to me. Interesting to read about, but not realistic. I liked shows like Charmed and books with similar content, but I grew out of them when I was about thirteen. My sister, however, stayed interested for several more years. Serenity didn't just entertain herself with the pop media versions, though. She actually got into learning about the real thing.

Serenity liked to learn about the historical practices and took a special note of 'dark' or 'black' magic. Of course, this worried me a little, so I tried to take a more active interest, just to be sure of what she was actually doing and making sure she wasn't going to accidentally get hurt. She wasn't too happy about it when she realized what I was actually doing, but she understood that I had good intentions and we didn't fight. I didn't have to worry. She wanted to learn about it, not practice it, especially when she educated herself on what the supposed repercussions were – bargaining with devils and ghosts, opening yourself up to retribution, contracting yourself to beings who actually had the power to complete the spells. I don't think she ever thought it was real, but unlike the Bloody Mary chant, she was oddly insistent that we didn't try any, even just for kicks.

Needless to say, black magic made an impression with me. With proof of the supernatural, it was shockingly easy to accept magic being a legit possibility, and being so close to something that I'd been taught was so dangerous made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

There was a book or block or something in the center of the table, pushed back to the wall and covered with the tablecloth. On top of the covered block rested a bare skull or some sort of animal. I wanted to say it was a raccoon or a fox, but I knew more about human anatomy than animals'. There were two candles on the block, one on each side of the skull.

Right in front of the block was a small brown bowl. It looked ritualistic, and contained a small pool of still-wet blood. Pressed upright between the bowl and the block was a colored picture of Dean, printed out from a vantage point higher up. I recognized the scene around him as the inside of Roy's tent, back from when we'd first gone there for him to be healed. Hell, I was even in the frame, although I was looking at him and my hair had fallen to the side, partially blocking my face from the camera. Across his face was a red 'X', also drawn in blood.

On both the right and the left sides of the table were candles, positioned symmetrically. Blood was splattered in lines along the tablecloth. Small off-colored bones were lying out bare, along with horns that looked like they were from a larger animal on the left side, with the tips of the horns dipped in blood that dripped down the bone.

Holy hell. "Now, this is disturbing," I murmured, looking over the desk with an increasingly unsettling itch. I knew that I was supposed to destroy the altar – because there was no mistaking that was what it was – but even touching it seemed like I would be screwing around with something far over my head.

"I gave your friend life, and I can take it away."

I jumped and spun around, hair whipping against my neck to see Sue Ann standing at the bottom of the stairs behind me, holding her cross necklace in one hand over her chest. The necklace was black beads around the cross, and had been easily hidden underneath her collared clothes in the past.

Instead of letting myself be frightened by her sudden appearance, I snarled and snapped my arm up, holding my hand flat above my head. "I have had it up to here with your God complex!" Almost hysterically, I thought back to a joke my sister and I had made while watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and one of the characters had done the same thing with, 'I've had it up to here' and holding a hand above their head, and we said that he was 'drowning' in 'here.'

"If you see an altar, flip it as soon as you can."

I turned to the side, whirling around and reaching down to catch my fingers underneath the edge of the desk. The tablecloth was rough. Bracing my shoulders, I planted my feet in and raised my arms up, flipping the altar. Damn, it was heavier than I had thought it would be, but I was strong for someone of my build and I flipped the table up onto its side.

Everything slid off. The animal skull was cracked up in several places, and the candles rolled on the ground, extinguishing themselves. The blood in the bowl was spilled, splashing over the horns and the tablecloth while the desk itself made a sort of creaking noise like I'd broken part of it.

When I moved back to see Sue Ann, I realized she was bolting up the stairs. Growling, I took off after her as she climbed up out of the cellar. When my feet hit the stairs, she slammed the cellar doors shut. By the time I slammed my open hands against the doors, they wouldn't give. Something cracked, like wood, but didn't give in. I pounded my fists up against it. The doors opened only enough for me to see the crack of light and Sue Ann's shadow as she knelt in front, as well as a sort of beam across the middle of the doors.

She's put a beam through the handles!

"Holly, can't you see?" Sue Ann asked desperately, her voice cracked and pleading. "The Lord chose me to reward the just and punish the wicked!"

I hit my right fist repeatedly on the door, shouting up through the wood. I knew I probably couldn't open it, but I thought if I could scare her, it might be worth a sore hand. "God didn't tell you jack, you psycho witch!" I spat. "You're using black magic to control forces that humans should have no say over!"

"You'll understand… in time." Sue Ann's volume lowered and I thought I heard her murmur something in Latin. "Dean is wicked, and he deserves to die just as Layla deserves to live!" I felt like she was begging for me to get it and stop fighting. "It is God's will!"

I tried a different tactic, and shut my eyes. I stopped punching the door, knuckles stinging painfully. "What's happening to Layla is tragic, yes, no one's arguing that, but people die for a reason!" I tried to reason strongly through the door. "Life isn't fair, Sue Ann! Layla's tumor is malignant and it will kill her, because one woman's misfortune doesn't mean that other innocent people have to die for some semblance of balance in a totally unbalanced scheme!"

But I've spent a long time learning about psychotics and murderers, and I knew that no amount of optimism or reasoning would stop Sue Ann unless a miracle happened, and I'm beginning to think that miracles are really only flip-sided deals with the bad side concealed.

"Goodbye, Holly," Sue Ann said dully, muffled. "I'll return to let you out once my job has been complete."

I turned back around on the stairs and leaned over the rails, looking over the cellar room for another way out. I wanted to scream for Sam and Serenity, but realized that maybe Sue Ann didn't know they were here. If I blew their cover, then who knew what would happen? Nothing good, at least.

Then I remembered the boarded up window. If all of the other wood was so old it was rotting, who was to say the boards were new? I almost flew back down the stairs and to the window, and picked up the broken table leg from the floor by the ground-level escape. I turned so I was holding it sideways, like a battering ram.

I held it up to the window, swung back and prepared for the impact. I cupped the end of the table leg with one hand and held the other end up with an open palm, then slammed it to the window and the boards. The wood slid along my open hand and hit the target accurately. I heard a loud crack of breaking wood and smirked, pulling back to ram the boards again. Sue Ann underestimated me.

I broke out of the boarded up window and escaped over useless, broken furniture with a few scrapes and a dirty suit to show for it, but once I was outside, I climbed up to my feet and took off running towards the car lot. I thought that was probably where Sue Ann was – near the tent, so she'd know when Layla was being 'healed', so she'd know when to summon the reaper she had chained.

I wanted to scream out for Dean, but knew that if Sue Ann heard me, I wouldn't have the benefit of surprise. Also, if Dean was already being attacked, he probably wouldn't be able to respond anyway.

After hearing my heartbeat thundering in my ears, I saw what looked like a humanoid shape standing underneath a streetlight in the car lot, with long hair and her hands brought up towards her mouth. Setting my jaw in grim determination, I started to run up behind her. The damp ground cushioned the sounds of my feet.

"…tetigit theristis. Se deo-" I heard Sue Ann chanting quickly in Latin, the spell foreign but a clear incantation if I'd ever heard one.

I came at her from behind and tackled her down onto the ground like a football player. Sue Ann squeaked, an amusing sound if the circumstances had been different, and couldn't catch herself. When I went down on top of her, she tried to roll over.

I wrapped an arm around her throat as she pushed herself on top of me. I hadn't had enough time to brace myself to stay on top or keep her pinned, so I did the next best thing and put her in a strangle hold. Her incantation had stopped, and I reached with my other hand for the Coptic cross around her neck. I fumbled for it blindly before feeling the beads and wrapping my fingers around the necklace and pulling.

The necklace snapped and the beads sprung off, flying everywhere as they were released with tension. Sue Ann gasped at the pinch, and I released her. One of them hit me in the jaw and stung for a second, while another hit my chest and rolled down my shirt. Most of them ended up either caught in Sue Ann's clothes or on the ground.

Raising a hand up as high as I could with Sue Ann now grappling for the cross, I slung the necklace down onto the ground with as much force as I could possibly muster, and heard the telltale break of glass.

Sue Ann scrambled off of me, down on her knees beside the ruins of her cross necklace. "My god!" She yelled despairingly – not as an interjection, but as a claim to the reaper. I rolled over, half crushed by her weight, and pushed myself up onto my hands and knees while Sue Ann leaned down to try to collect the shards of glass. There was a wet slickness on the ground underneath the broken cross, as if it had been holding her own blood to tether the reaper to her, not just someone who had the necklace. "What have you done?!"

I panted and pulled at my blouse, dislodging the black prayer bead that had gotten caught in my clothes. It fell out and hit my thigh before rolling onto the ground. "He isn't a god," I spat, because very few things pisses me off more than people perverting religion to suit them. It's something you either commit to or you don't. You don't necessarily have to be sure, you just have to understand it if you claim to and not use it to justify wrongdoing. Sue Ann used her beliefs and fit them to make herself feel as if she were morally correct. "And he sure as hell isn't yours!"

Maybe it was weird that I was getting angry partially on behalf of the reaper, but it just wasn't right that he had been shackled to Sue Ann. In a way, it reminded me of the people in the Middle East who were captured and forced to kill people who really didn't need killing under threat of being executed. That's what Sue Ann had done to the reaper, right? She forced him to reap people who weren't supposed to die.

Because if there's anything I've learned from this disaster, it's that death has to happen. It can be prevented for as long as possible by human means, sure, but humans aren't gods. We don't have the right to cheat death when it happens. The reapers aren't necessarily to blame for it. They just do their jobs and keep the world running.

The second thing I learned was that hunting definitely wasn't strictly black and white. In this case, I was fighting as much for the reaper as for the humans, protecting them both. Not everything supernatural is malevolent, I realized with startling clarity then, and not everything that isn't human needs to be hunted. Just like with my Guardian, who was without a doubt a supernatural being, there were exceptions to the rule. Some supernatural beings would hunt humans. Those it was my job to hunt. Those that didn't? That did no harm, or even helped? They had a right to live – um, I use the term loosely – just like we did. Ghosts could pass on like they needed to. Mindless monsters should be stopped. But sentient beings, like reapers and nonhuman creatures and gods, who didn't deliberately hurt anyone – they had as much of a right to life as I did.

The streetlight Sue Ann had been standing under was now just to our right, but we were still bathed in the yellowish glow – until, even through my blouse and jacket, I felt the temperature drop down at least ten degrees. As the seasons changed and it was already dark out, it had already been chilly, and now I wouldn't have been surprised if it was cold enough to frost. I pushed myself back on my hands until I was settled, balancing on my knees with my toes sinking into the ground. Sue Ann straightened from where she was leaning over the smashed necklace piece.

The light over our heads flickered off, plunging us into pitch darkness, then back on, and off again. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust, but our streetlight stayed off this time, and when I blinked again, one of the others down the lot was illuminating an almost skeletal figure.

He was like Dean had described, but the older hunter hadn't really done him justice. He looked too thin to be alive, yet his suit somehow fit. He was tall – at least as tall as Sam – with long limbs that seemed just a bit off in proportion. He was almost balding, his skin ashen and wrinkled, his ears slightly pointed. His jugular stood out against the white impeccable collar of a dress shirt underneath the jacket. Aside from the white shirt that was only visible around his neck, the rest of his attire was black. He carried no scythe, but he appeared menacing enough on his own.

Then I realized that I could see him, and my heart sped up. I thought I was only supposed to see a reaper if it was attacking me?! Though it was far enough away for me to not feel immediately threatened, I was prepared to either run or try to fight. I tried to remain calm, not be afraid. I hadn't done anything. I freed him from Sue Ann's control. That was good, right? If he had wanted to be servile to her, she wouldn't have needed the spell anyway and the broken cross wouldn't matter.

Slowly, the reaper raised a long, scrawny arm, pointing with a narrow finger. I flickered my eyes for a moment between the reaper and the direction he was pointing in, wary of taking my eyes off of him for very long. He didn't move. I took a longer look. He was directing me towards another row of the car lot, and the puzzle pieces clicked swiftly.

Sue Ann had been using an incantation. He'd been attacking Dean. He's telling me where Dean is.

"Thank you," I whispered, because why would he be pointing if Dean wasn't alive? After Sue Ann's control was broken, he'd chosen to leave the other hunter alone over continuing to kill him. Now he was telling me where my friend was. A soft breeze blew through my hair and brought a few strands out of my face.

Next, the reaper did something utterly chilling; it looked slowly to Sue Ann, and smiled. It was small, just a quirk of the lips at both sides, but it was eerie and sent a rush of fear straight through my heart. Though something – intuition, or instinct – told me that I was safe from the reaper, the smile was still somehow terrifyingly malevolent.

In the blink of an eye, the reaper was gone from underneath the street light. I looked down. The temperature was still colder and our streetlight was still out. Sue Ann made a choked, gasping noise of horror and she tried to jump up to her feet.

I looked after her, knowing that she wouldn't get very far. I twisted to look over my shoulder as the woman started to run in the opposite direction, but she stopped. I couldn't see the reaper, but I knew he was there. The woman's head tilted back. Her skin started to change color as the circulation slowed along with her heart. Her eyes started to glaze and she convulsed, making a helpless gurgling noise.

I didn't want to watch her be murdered, so I pushed myself up to my feet slowly. I couldn't condone what the reaper had done, but I couldn't disagree with it, either, and I knew that I couldn't stop it even if I had particularly wanted to.

Sue Ann finally dropped, convulsing like she was having a seizure, and I watched as her jerky motions slowed, her mouth and eyes open, frozen in a panic at an unseen attacker.

The air stayed cold. Subconsciously, a shiver ran up my spine. I wasn't going to fool myself into thinking I'd made a new friend, because that's not what had happened. I did, however, get the feeling that the reaper wouldn't harm me. Pointing out Dean's location felt more like an act of gratitude – or a boon, maybe, like a payment gods or deities made to subjects who presented them with gifts – and I couldn't expect any more than that.

"I'm sorry this happened," I offered into the air, seeing my own breath puff up in a cloud in front of my face. "You're free now."

It took a few seconds, but then I felt well and really alone. The temperature rose. The streetlight overhead stayed shut off. I didn't mind.

I looked down at the deceased woman who had caused all this trouble and at the same time saved one of my best friends. I didn't know what to think of her anymore. Reaching up to my head, I gave my hair a light tug and turned to go in the direction the reaper had indicated, feeling as though I'd lost just as much as I'd won.

Serenity, Sam, and I moved around the room, collecting the things we'd acquired and either throwing them out or packing them into our bags. The entire process, between the four of us, usually only took twenty minutes, tops, to get packed and loaded into the car, but this time we had a brother who was sitting on my bed and staring at the blank television thoughtfully.

I sighed. Our siblings were across the room, sorting through the papers Sam had printed out for his research and deciding what was worth keeping for future reference. I shoved a pajama camisole into my duffel and looked over the comforter to my roommate. "What's wrong?" I asked Dean.

"Nothing." He answered it too quickly and shook his head, breaking his staring match with the darkened TV screen.

I shoved my bag to the side and sat down about a foot or so from the older hunter, cocking my head to the side. "Dean." I said patiently. "I've known you for six months. I can tell when you're moping. And right now, you're moping so hard I'm amazed you haven't strained anything." At the table by the window, Serenity muffled a snicker and Sam turned away to hide a slight smile. "So tell me what's bothering you, or I'll make Sam pull out the puppy dog eyes," I threatened, because really, Sam's puppy dog eyes should be considered a lethal weapon.

He glanced over at the other two and then looked to me, shifting and pulling one leg up onto the mattress with us. "We did the right thing here, didn't we?"

Well, Sue Ann died, and now people wouldn't be getting miraculously cured, but we restored the natural order of things. "Of course," I said, not letting him see that I'd been questioning the same thing. I ran one hand from his shoulder down to his elbow.

Dean looked down to his knees. "It doesn't feel like it," he muttered.

Someone knocked on the door at one of the least opportune moments. "I'll get it," Serenity announced, letting me stay next to Dean while she handed a couple of print-outs to Sam to organize while she moved across the room towards the door. She opened it about halfway, but her body was blocking me from seeing the hall. "Layla?"

Oh, great.

Sam looked up, brightening slightly when my sister stated the visitor's name. "Hey, Layla," he greeted with a smile. "Come on in."

Serenity seemed little unsure of this, but she honored Sam's wishes and stepped aside, opening the door wider. Layla stepped through and immediately looked around, taking an inventory of the nearly-bare room and the bags on the beds. Dean stood up quickly, leaving me with my hand in the air where his arm had been. Shutting my eyes, I took a deep breath and pulled my arms back to myself.

I stayed seated on the bed, looking at the woman contemplatively. My bed. My friends. My place. I wasn't going to just up and leave because she wanted to talk to a guy she apparently liked, especially because I actually knew him. She doesn't even know his last name!

"How did you know where we were?" I asked her, putting forth an actual effort not to sound anything other than mildly surprised by her appearance.

Layla looked to me quickly, and then nodded in Sam's direction. "Sam called." I shot Sam a quick look, feeling almost wounded, but looked back to Layla as she raised her eyes to Dean, who was taller. "He said… you wanted to say goodbye?"

Dean looked over his shoulder at his brother, giving him a similar expression for meddling.

Sam cleared his throat, putting down the folder he was sorting things into on the table. "I'm gonna… grab a soda," he excused thinly, skirting beside the TV desk to go around Dean, Layla, and Serenity to escape out the open door.

Dean and Layla continued to watch each other, Layla uncertain and Dean conflicted.

I was about to clear my throat loudly, but Serenity caught my eyes from over Layla's shoulder. "I want some coffee from downstairs," she declared, and yes, we do love our caffeine. "Holly?" She prompted.

I smiled at her and patted the bed on both sides of me. "I'm good," I said pleasantly.

She arched her eyebrows at me, unimpressed. "Come on," she said, now more like a bemused command. I thought it seemed more like a subpoena than a sisterly invitation. "You're going to need breakfast."

Don't make a scene… damn.

I caught the summons as it was and pursed my lips, rising from the bed reluctantly, moving past Layla and maybe I invaded a little bit of her personal space on my way to meet my sister. She patted my back like she was praising me for obeying and pulled the door shut behind her, leaving the two alone in the hotel room.

"What was that about?" I asked when the door was closed and we were out of hearing range of the two still in the hotel room. I crossed my arms confrontationally while I eyed my sister, who had started to move towards the elevator but stopped when she saw that I was really not quite ready to budge.

"We're giving Dean time with Layla." Serenity shrugged one shoulder as if she didn't care. She was usually pretty laid back about who her friends socialized with, so long as there wasn't any danger. Of course she wasn't as bothered as I was.

I shifted, dropping my arms down and catching my thumbs in the pockets of my pants. "But why do they have to be alone?" I asked, ashamed of how close I was to whining.

"Holly," my sister drew out my name in the same complaining, somewhat childish tone that I was taking with her to reinforce her point. "We're leaving in, like, ten minutes," she reminded me, back to her normal voice while I scowled at her for mocking me. "What do you think's going to happen? Besides, Dean's an adult. Why are you so against them being left alone?"

I opened my mouth, but it took a minute for me to figure it out for myself in my head, and there was no way in hell that I was actually going to say that to Serenity, so it took a little bit longer to come up with a lie.

"It doesn't seem-"

But Serenity's eyes had already flown wide open as she came to her own conclusion, and seeing as how well she knew me, I was fairly confident that she wouldn't be wrong. "You like him!" She accused, seeming stunned and nothing short of shocked. To be completely fair, the last time we'd discussed either of us being romantically or sexually involved with either of the brothers had been months ago in Iowa during the Hook Man hunt, and I'd assured her confidently that I had no feelings of the sort.

I think I'd been lying to myself, even then.

"Do not!" I retorted automatically, crossing my arms and glaring at my sister.

She was skeptical, but then nodded slowly to herself. She stepped to one side of the hallway. "Okay, then." Uh-oh, this is a test. While usually I'm good at picking out when she's testing or trapping me, I'm not always as adept at figuring out what the right answer – or escape – is. She held out a hand to motion down the hall towards the elevator. "If you're not crushing hard, then you won't mind that we're going downstairs to get breakfast."

Telling my heartbeat to calm the fuck down, I nodded determinedly and forced myself to roll my eyes. "Fine," I said carelessly. "Let's go. I want waffles."